

Discover more from David Whyte
Poems, essays and commentaries as well as insights from my Three Sundays Series.
Over 7,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Lon’s Fort always seems to sit, not only at the absolute centre of its surrounding geography in the limestone mountains of North Clare, but also, somehow at the centre of time itself, as if holding a physical conversation between the land itself before any human settlement; the long generations who lived within its walls and worked amongst its fields and pastures, and then, as a gathering place, for all its future visitors, including ourselves, passing by on our equally brief journey through life.
LON'S FORT is round and looks on every other roundness of the world as if to stand here is to stand at the center of circle after growing circle and reach in the mind for a far circumference that holds as focus an interior so far in so concentrated with origin we find ourselves by looking out at what looks back: the lighted edge of rock and sky, the sweet unmoving darkness over the horizon that makes a perfect beckoning symmetry to the night beneath our feet, the underground where light cannot live but whose darkness makes a ground on which to stand, the central ancestral story of those who lived here looking out at the same horizon and the same surrounding ground who saw a world that witnessed them at a privileged center, their lives caught like ours in the glance of what lies beyond only for a fleeting moment. -from Pilgrim
Lon's Fort
Caught up in the fast moving and sweeping circularity of David's description of Lon's Fort and its impact on him, I found it hard to grasp its full meaning until I read it half a dozen times and let go of what I thought it was saying. I came finally to the idea that standing in the center of the round fort is to stand in all circles of existence past and present, and to find our place in this ever expanding circularity, we root in the present moment, in the dark unknown beneath our feet, holding that center. Then by looking out at what looks back, we glimpse those who have stood there before us, our heritage, giving us now our own sense of who we are. "... their lives caught like ours in the glance of what lies beyond, only for a fleeting moment." A dense and personal "screenshot" of David's love of Ireland.
Martin played at so many of Sebastopol's Celtic Music and Arts Festivals. He is so talented and seems such a lovely human being! I love that you had this magical time with him, and even more that you two are collaborating! I have been with you in person your last two times at Asilomar, and all the 3 Sundays since 2020. I am so moved and nourished by your offerings. Thank you from the entirety of my being.